Stewart Harris Designs Details

About Stewart Harris Designs

Affordable, professional graphic design and illustration.
Corporate literature, brochures, posters, leaflets, book design, logos, flyers, banners and display items, record sleeves and album packaging, illustrations...
Whatever visuals you need, I can bring your ideas to life and create a solution that gets your message across memorably and with maximum impact.
Please get in touch to discuss your requirements.

Stewart Harris Designs Q&A

Describe your creative process.

It depends on the project, but I usually start by exploring the brief fully with the client, determining what the delivered result needs to communicate in terms of message, audience and context. Sometimes people will come to me already with specific visual ideas, other times it’s more vague, but the essential part is defining and agreeing the key points the work needs to convey.
Following initial discussion, I’ll come up with a set of concept roughs, then go back to the client for their feedback and further input. I like to keep dialogue going throughout the whole process, so the client feels involved from roughs to a chosen concept, through refining and sign-off of the finished work.
Everything starts life as pencil sketches and roughs before I go anywhere near my Mac and tablet. I love the tactile connection between idea and visualisation. Jumping into technology too early in the process means you can get sidetracked by tools, effects or by making an unfinished idea look slick and polished. Without a really strong idea as the starting point the project will run into problems later on. That’s why a solid understanding of the client’s needs and the problem you’re trying to solve is vital.

What information do you need from a client before you can start work?

It’s good if they have a clear idea of what they need the work to communicate, who they need to communicate it to, and in what context - but if any of those elements aren’t there, that’s something I’ll help them clarify in the initial stage.
It’s crucial at that early stage to define the problem to be solved, and make sure the brief is right. It’s fine to have some examples of other work that you like aspects of, but very occasionally people will say ‘I want something pretty much like this’, which can be problematic, if what they’ve seen is really the solution to a very different set of problems. Then you have to take it back a stage and work out exactly what they need the project to address.

What do you love most about your job?

The variety of work, the freedom of freelancing, and getting to do what I love doing (creating visual solutions for things)!

What inspired you to start your own business?

If you’re a creative individual, it’s almost feels like don’t have a choice. It’s something you need to do. And starting my own business was the best outlet for enabling me to do it.

Why should our clients choose you?

I bring enthusiasm, experience, the ability to listen and interpret a brief creatively to deliver something that really fits what the client needs, not an off-the-shelf ‘that’ll do’ solution. There are obviously some types of work more strongly represented in my portfolio, so if that’s the kind of work you’re after, hopefully it’s a no-brainer. But I’m pretty versatile and can apply my skills to lot of different areas.